


Too Close

by Reydar



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 23:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11046990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reydar/pseuds/Reydar
Summary: The silence drags on for too long and Kim feels the need to fill it. “But if you don’t want to do this, if you don’t want to try that’s okay. We’re still a team. I’ll get over it.”It feels like a lie. It probably is.~~A nightmare and a confession.





	Too Close

_No._

It’s her waking thought, on the tip of her tongue as her eyes shoot open, but the word doesn’t come out. She pulls herself up, gasping, but her hand clamps over her mouth when she remembers where she is. She feels tears fall against her fingers but she doesn’t know why she’s crying, the dream is too fresh, and these first few seconds of consciousness are disorienting.

The title screen from the movie they fell asleep during gives the room a blue glow as Trini looks around for a head count. Zack behind her on the couch, right arm stretched awkwardly around his head. Billy and Jason to her left, sharing the queen sized comforter they took from Kim’s room. And to her right, Kimberly, lying on her stomach. Trini’s chest constricts.

Kim. That’s why she’s crying.

She moves her hand to wipe her tears as she lets go of the breath she was holding. Her next inhale is a shaky one. She throws off her blanket and stands up, stepping silently over Kim on her way out of the living room. She doesn’t notice Kim’s eyelids flutter, doesn’t realize she’s watching her leave.

Trini’s feet lead her up the stairs to the only other room in the house she feels comfortable in. The door was left open but Trini shuts it after she enters. She pauses for a moment before walking past Kim’s bed and toward the sliding glass door to the balcony, because she’s Kimberly Hart, of course she has a balcony. She leans her forearms on the railing she usually climbs over to enter the house and stares at the city lights for a while.

_"There’s too many of them!” Billy yells._

__

_“We just have to hold them off until we find Rita!” Jason throws his fist through a Putty, splintering it._

__

_Trini looks around, struggling to see much of anything through the madness. She finds Kim holding her ground across the street. Kim turns to face her but her mask is off, it shouldn’t be off—_

__

_“There! Rita! She’s there! In Kim’s suit!” Trini screams._

“Hey.”

Trini didn’t hear Kim follow her. Strange.

Trini turns her head slightly, only to acknowledge Kim’s presence, but she looks back toward the city without a word.

“Bad dream?” Kim asks, taking a spot next to Trini on the railing.

Trini neither confirms nor denies. “Just needed some air.”

The silence hangs heavy. Kim looks at her hands while she says, “You were scared, still are. I can feel it and the boys can too. I told them I’d make sure you’re alright.”

“I’m fine,” Trini responds, mostly on instinct.

Kim knows not to contradict her. At least not yet, and definitely not so obviously. Instead they look out over the city together, the city they saved, the city they were completely ready and willing to die for. That kind of emotional trauma is usually drowned in whiskey, but these kids can’t even buy the stuff legally. Instead they rely on each other.

“Was it about…?” Kim doesn’t need to finish. They know.

Trini’s head falls. “Yeah,” it comes out as a whisper.

_Rita smiles from within the pink suit, taunting. Trini lets out a hellish scream as she sprints across the street, picking up a dislodged piece of rebar on the way. She jumps, flies through the air and lands, stabbing the rebar through Rita’s heart, but Rita only laughs as they fall to the ground._

“I get them too,” Kim says.

“Hm?”

“It’s always the same one, actually. We’re in the zords and Goldar is backing us up against that pit, and we fall but we don’t morph. We keep falling until I wake up,” Kim says.

“Well, if we thought we were messed up before…” Trini says. Kim puffs out a laugh through her nose and it eases a bit of the tension. Because there’s always tension with the two of them. Always has been.

Trini glances in Kim’s direction. “Mine was different.”

Kim looks at her but is unable to catch her eye. She waits patiently.

“We were fighting on foot. I saw you across the street, but when you turned around it was Rita in your suit, not you,” Trini stares at her thumbs. It’s all she can say right now.

Kim hesitates. She’s tried this before with unfortunate results but she can feel the anguish in Trini’s heart and it’s killing her. And she knows it's only a fraction of what Trini feels herself so she reaches for her hand and interlocks their fingers. Trini doesn’t pull away this time, but for some reason that doesn’t settle Kim’s nerves.

Trini clears her throat. “So I picked up a piece of rebar and I stabbed it into Rita’s heart and we fell to the ground. But when I looked back at her she was—it was you. I killed you.”

_Death by Trini_ , Kim thinks. She supposes it’s not the worst way to go. “I’m alive. The dream’s over,” she says.

“I know, I know, it’s just—” Trini stops herself.

“What?” Kim asks softly.

Trini closes her eyes, but the image is carved into her eyelids so she opens them again. She looks at Kim’s hand in hers and swallows. _Grow up, it was just a dream_ , she tells herself.

“I was on my knees next to you. You were bleeding so fast, and you looked at me—Kim if I ever saw that look in real life I think it would kill me.” Trini focuses on one white light out in the distance. It blinks every couple seconds, and she waits for it to light up again before she continues. “And then you were gone. Your eyes were open but you were gone.”

Kim rubs her thumb across Trini’s knuckles, doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. “Is that why you can’t look at me?” She asks.

Trini’s head falls and Kim thinks she screwed up again. She prepares herself for Trini to leave, but instead she turns and wraps her arms around Kim’s waist, pulling her into a hug. Kim’s heart leaps into her throat but she swallows it down.

“Hey, I’m okay. I’m here,” she wraps her arms around Trini’s shoulders, “I’m alright. You didn’t do anything Trin.”

“Can you just shut up for a second,” Trini says into her shirt.

Kim nods and braces for her to pull away. She knows it’s coming. Every time she thinks they could—no, she won’t let herself do this again. Not now. She can put her stupid feelings aside and just be there for her friend. Her left hand must not have gotten the memo, however, because it reaches up and runs its fingers through Trini’s hair, and Kim’s lips press a kiss to the top of her head. It all happens so naturally Kim even scares herself. And she must scare Trini too because she starts to pull away.

“Kim, I—”

“I’m sorry,” Kim rushes, “I shouldn’t—”

“No it’s just—I can’t—” She backs the rest of the way out of Kim’s arms and sighs in frustration. “Why did it have to be you?” She says.

“What?” Kim says, slightly offended but unsure if it’s justified.

“If Jason had come out here, or Billy, they’d ask me about my dream, sure, but then they’d distract me with some stupid story. If it was Zack, he’d call me crazy girl and say something dumb just to get me to laugh. But with you I can’t—it’s all so confusing,” Trini says.

Kim thought the little rejections would hurt less as time went on. She thought wrong.

“Confusing,” Kim repeats.

Trini knows she made a mistake so she moves toward the door. She wants to put her hand through the glass but that would give her away, so she settles for grabbing the handle with a grip that turns her knuckles white. She pulls the door the rest of the way open but Kimberly stops her before she can walk through.

“Trin, can I ask you something?”

Trini isn’t ready for this conversation, she’s too tired, too uninhibited, but she turns and answers anyway. “Sure.”

Kim didn’t expect her to stop, and she scrambles to put her words in order. “Things with you and me, they’re different than they are with the boys. I think we’ve both known that for a while. And maybe I do make things confusing but you do too, because every time I open up and reach out, every time I think something might change—it doesn’t. And every time it feels like you want it to, but you don’t let it. Like there’s something to lose. Like you’re afraid of me.”

“Is there a question in there somewhere?”

Kim swallows. “I like you, okay?” Her lip twitches into a smile for a split second. She’s never said it out loud before. “I like you a lot. I like talking with you, I like holding you, I like being there for you, but every time we get too close you pull away, and I know you can see what you do to me. I know I’m not a great actress, so that means you’re either a huge asshole, or you feel it too and you’re afraid to do anything about it. So which one is it?”

_I wish I was an asshole,_ Trini thinks. She can’t look Kim in the eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she says.

“Yeah that’s pretty obvious, you just had a nightmare about it,” Kim says.

It’s annoying enough for Trini to make eye contact, and Kim doesn’t let her drop it.

“Look, I have a pretty terrible track record of hurting people I care about,” Trini says.

“So do I. We’d be great together.”

“Kim, stop. I’m serious—”

“So am I. I’ve never felt like this before. Maybe it’s the super powers or the saving-the-world or the coming-this-close-to-dying but dammit Trin, if there’s even the slightest chance that you feel the same way I do—I can’t just let that go. I can’t,” Kim spills.

The silence drags on for too long and Kim feels the need to fill it. “But if you don’t want to do this, if you don’t want to try that’s okay. We’re still a team. I’ll get over it.”

It feels like a lie. It probably is.

Trini’s lungs have turned to lead. “Kim, if anything happened…I could never forgive myself.”

“Neither could I,” Kim responds, “I guess we better try really hard to make sure nothing happens.”

“You don’t know everything about me, even now,” Trini says.

“You don’t know everything about me, either,” Kim counters. “You’re not the only one who’s screwed up, Trini. All I know is I care about you enough that nothing I could learn will make a difference.”

With every breath, Trini’s lungs start to feel more like lungs. “Are you sure?” She asks. In all the months they’ve known each other, Trini has never let herself hope for what she’s hoping for now.

Kim takes two steps forward and finds Trini’s hand with her own. Trini mumbles something toward the ground. Kim thinks it’s Spanish but she can’t quite make it out.

“What was that?”

“Please God, don’t let me mess this up,” Trini says, looking up.

Kim should honestly win an award for the amount of effort she’s putting into not saying ‘I love you.’ She leans down to kiss Trini and for a second she thinks she’s dreaming, but when they pull away, Trini is still there.

“You trying to break my hand, Kim?” Trini says, and Kim realizes she’s been squeezing her hand with almost Ranger level force. She drops it immediately.

“Sorry, I guess I just didn’t want to let go,” she says.

Trini’s arms find their way around Kim’s waist. Kim pulls her close, and Trini has never felt so happy and so scared in her entire life. “You don’t have to.”


End file.
